Academia, Free Speech, Media, Politics, Uncategorized

Montclair Professor Calls For Trump To Be Killed

download-1Women’s Studies Professor Kevin Allred at Montclair State University is back in the news.  Allred previously attracted national attention (while on the Rutgers faculty) after he was reportedly ordered to go through a psychiatric evaluation after students “felt threatened” by him following Trump’s election.  Now, Allred (who teaches a course on Beyonce) posted a comment that he hoped someone would kill Donald Trump.  As should come as little surprise to many who know my view of the First Amendment, I view this statement as protected speech and hyperbolic.  However, it was reckless, hateful, and worthy of condemnation.

I must also confess that I am perplexed by the fact that a professor is teaching (and students are getting credit) for a course on Beyonce.  Hopefully there is something substantive in such a course though Allred’s public comments do not offer much basis for optimism.

allred2In a tweet, Allred reportedly wrote “Trump is a f***ing joke. This is all a sham. I wish someone would just shoot him outright.  “The tweet was reportedly withdrawn, according to the Washington Times.

Allred also retweeted the infamous image of Kathy Griffin holding the president’s head.

Allred later clarified that wishing death on the president is different than making a threat on his life.  There is a federal law making it a crime to threaten the life of a president.

Kevin Allred ✔@KevinAllred

saying you wish donald trump was dead is different than making a direct threat against him. just saying… 🤷🏻‍♂️

11:35 PM – Jul 28, 2017
It is unfortunately very common for people to speak violently about those they despise or oppose.  Yet, academics as a whole prefer logical and reasoned discourse over such low-grade hateful venting.
The controversy again forces a school to decide on how much free speech is accorded a faculty member in the use of social media and engaging in political speech. Recently, we discussed a case of Trinity Professor who posted racist material against white people but the school still refused to take action against him under principles of free speech — a position that I supported.  There is a rising concern that most schools are imposing an uncertain and undefined standard in judging what comments can be a basis for discipline and what comments are treated as an exercise of free speech.
What do you think?

75 thoughts on “Montclair Professor Calls For Trump To Be Killed”

  2. I think Rep. Steve Scalise has the most informed opinion about people like Allred the Beyonce Deepthinker.

    Maybe we could ask the Congressman in an interval between rehab exercises and instruction on how get through any given day with what he has left.

  3. According to NJ.com this is not Allred’s first time around the bend. In November after Trump’s win he went on another rant serious while teaching at Rutgers (i.e. Violence against whites) that he was forced to have a psychiatric evaluation. Rutgers subsequently let him go. I don’t think this is being widely reported. I wonder why since it definitely shows a pattern of unstable thought processes.

    1. See Robert Stacy McCain’s research into women’s studies texts and the people who write them. McCain’s not an academician. He’s a layman who immersed himself in the monographic literature and was willing to call ’em as he sees ’em, which social research faculty will not do. His conclusion: as an academic research programme, women’s studies is spurious; women’s studies faculties are collecting pools of head cases with lesbian tendencies.

  4. Incoherence and hysteria are skyrocketing.

    The birthrate and population are “death spiraling.” .

    Enough!

    Repeal the 19th Amendment.

  5. It’s illegal to make a death threat, and I’m thankful for this aspect of US law. And, I’m thankful for the Secret Service having upped their game with the advent of social media to respond in kind to death threats voiced, however lame the motive (most bloggers publish such comments as a video game – a form of vicarious self- entertainment.)

    That said, there are all kinds of clever ways to express a death threat or wish which are meant to spread panic and intimidate the named target. I’m not sure where the law draws a red line. I’m guessing that there has to be proof of intent to send a message of threat to the intended target, and the target has to take it seriously (not perceive it as a prank).

    The law may be weak in regard to encouraging unknown hearers of the message to carry out an assassination. This is exactly what happened in Israel leading up to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. Except, it wasn’t one person making such exhortations, but thousands. The free speech rights of Israelis went unchallenged by the law, and over months a “kill Rabin the traitor” culture spread until it culminated in the assassination. This form of political assassination is sophisticated, and usually beyond the reach of the law to deter it. It relies upong the message reaching a person with mental illness who will rise to the challenge. It makes me very uncomfortable to watch freedom of speech gamed in this manner.
    If we care about good, competent people coming forward to run for high public office, we’ll veer in the direction of strict enforcement of the death threat law, so that the person waging the threat ends up in deep doo doo, even if no legal action is taken….like Kathy Griffin is facing.

  6. The inmates have taken over the asylum

    and the taxpayers foot the bill.
    ________________________________

    “Beyonce 101?”

    “Women’s Studies?”

    Incoherent and hysterical curricula?

    A student loan crisis to create teacher jobs?

    Striking teachers unions?
    _________________________________

    Privatize education.

    Digitize the bricks and mortar.

    Automate and move the classroom to the home.

    Hire DVD’s and robots and fire striking teachers.

    1. The inmates took over the asylum years ago! Nancy Pelosi claims she is a “master legislator”. President Trump rolls many of these “legislative” results, as many as he can.

    2. George, your proposal would put the deep state in our living rooms. Repealing the 19th amendment would not keep Beyoncé 101 out of our living rooms. More head-scratching is better than less head-scratching.

  8. Oh, I don’t know, can you really consider a Professor of a class on Beyonce an “academic”? He must have hideous self esteem issues. Can you imagine him among STEM professors?

    The class, the department of women’s studies, and this Professor all reflect poorly upon this institution. None of them are serious pursuits. “Women’s studies” may be a class in cultural anthropology, psychology, or business, but I disagree with devoting entire departments to such topics. It feeds into the victimhood profiteering racket.

    1. Without a doubt, he thinks well of himself. A deficit of ‘self-esteem’ is something no one suffers from. A deficit of self-confidence is, but that’s not likely this jack-wagon’s problem.

  9. Wishing someone would shoot Chump isn’t a threat–implied or direct. Just wishful thinking, and protected speech. Yes, as I have stated before, I believe people in academia should possess or at least fake some level of human decency and good sense. He probably shouldn’t have said this.

    As to Beyoncé, while I don’t know the contents of the course, I would assume for it to qualify as an academic course, versus a fan club, for instance, there would need to be content dealing with the history of race, music and culture, successful marketing strategies for musical talent, evolving musical tastes and various cultural influences, and so forth, so it’s not as “out there’ as it sounds. No worse and probably not much different from fashion merchandising, for example.

  10. You’re right, Jonathan Turley, it was an irresponsible statement. There are legal ways to get Trump out of office for which he is well qualified. We don’t want another assassination trashing the United States’ reputation further than it has already been trashed by this administration. Assassination is for dictatorships, though I can’t deny that the US qualifies as going in that direction under Trump. Nevertheless, I’d rather see him removed by legal means and it is looking as if he will be. Then he and his family can go off and resume screwing people privately as they did before, without benefit of the presidency.

    1. We don’t want another assassination trashing the United States’ reputation further than it has already been trashed by this administration.

      Typical progblather: other directed twittery re what will the Europeans think. The real reason is he’s the elected President and assassination is a form of participatory democracy not contemplated by our constitution or any other.

      though I can’t deny that the US qualifies as going in that direction under Trump.

      Well, emigrate. And don’t let the door hit your tuchus on the way out.

    2. How about we follow the law of the Constitution? President Trump was legally elected to serve a
      four-year term. The Constitution has served us well for 200+ years. Put your energies into more important legislation. Then, in 2020 put up a decent candidate (Hillary wasn’t), work hard getting votes, and hope your candidate wins.

  11. I would call him: Mountclair Fruitloop. Look at that photo. Earing too.

  12. This may have already been posted but I believe the man-bun professor has been canned:

    & it’s funny cuz in my interview they were super excited about me being young, hip, and calling out power. guess not in practice, huh? 👀

    — Kevin Allred (@KevinAllred) August 1, 2017
    Hip. EL OH EL.

    everyone loves to be edgy in the abstract. when nothing is actually on the line. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    — Kevin Allred (@KevinAllred) August 1, 2017
    K.

    this was all after they promised me work & had me spend weeks creating syllabi for classes they wanted me to teach. very classy, Montclair

    — Kevin Allred (@KevinAllred) August 1, 2017

    http://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2017/08/01/beyonce-professor-kevin-allred-who-wished-someone-would-shoot-trump-rants-about-being-fired/?utm_campaign=socialflow_twitchy&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social

    1. & it’s funny cuz in my interview they were super excited about me being young, hip, and calling out power. guess not in practice, huh? 👀

      Quite an indictment of the Montclair faculty responsible for this maroon’s employment contract. Here’s a suggestion: dissolve the Women’s Studies program and put the faculty therein out on the curb. Then depose the provost who rubber stamped this. Montclair trustees, ball’s in your court.

  13. This fits in with an article I re-read recently from 2014, called Ten Reasons I Am No Longer A Leftist, by Danusha V. Goska. His number 1 reason was “Hate.”

    1) Hate.

    If hate were the only reason, I’d stop being a leftist for this reason alone.

    Almost twenty years ago, when I could not conceive of ever being anything but a leftist, I joined a left-wing online discussion forum.

    Before that I’d had twenty years of face-to-face participation in leftist politics: marching, organizing, socializing.

    In this online forum, suddenly my only contact with others was the words those others typed onto a screen. That limited and focused means of contact revealed something.

    If you took all the words typed into the forum every day and arranged them according to what part of speech they were, you’d quickly notice that nouns expressing the emotions of anger, aggression, and disgust, and verbs speaking of destruction, punishing, and wreaking vengeance, outnumbered any other class of words.

    One topic thread was entitled “What do you view as disgusting about modern America?” The thread was begun in 2002. Almost eight thousand posts later, the thread was still going strong in June, 2014.

    Those posting messages in this left-wing forum publicly announced that they did what they did every day, from voting to attending a rally to planning a life, because they wanted to destroy something, and because they hated someone, rather than because they wanted to build something, or because they loved someone. You went to an anti-war rally because you hated Bush, not because you loved peace. Thus, when Obama bombed, you didn’t hold any anti-war rally, because you didn’t hate Obama.

    I experienced powerful cognitive dissonance when I recognized the hate. The rightest of my right-wing acquaintances — I had no right-wing friends — expressed nothing like this. My right-wing acquaintances talked about loving: God, their family, their community. I’m not saying that the right-wingers I knew were better people; I don’t know that they were. I’m speaking here, merely, about language.

    []

    Recently, I was trying to explain this aspect of why I stopped being a leftist to a left-wing friend, Julie. She replied, “No, I’m not an unpleasant person. I try to be nice to everybody.”

    “Julie,” I said, “You are an active member of the Occupy Movement. You could spend your days teaching children to read, or visiting the elderly in nursing homes, or organizing cleanup crews in a garbage-strewn slum. You don’t. You spend your time protesting and trying to destroy something — capitalism.”

    “Yes, but I’m very nice about it,” she insisted. “I always protest with a smile.”

    Pete is now a Facebook friend and his feed overflows with the anger that I’m sure he assesses as righteous. He protests against homophobic Christians, American imperialists, and Monsanto. I don’t know if Pete ever donates to an organization he believes in, or a person suffering from a disease, or if he ever says comforting things to afflicted intimates. I know he hates.

    I do have right-wing friends now and they do get angry and they do express that anger. But when I encounter unhinged, stratospheric vituperation, when I encounter detailed revenge fantasies in scatological and sadistic language, I know I’ve stumbled upon a left-wing website.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/07/ten_reasons_i_am_no_longer_a_leftist.html

    There is more at the link, and it is a good read.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

      1. Thank you, Ollie! I am glad you liked it!

        Like I have said many times, today’s Rabid Liberal is just the same Puritan of old, only without the ruff and the felt hat and the Bible.

        Their mindsets are the same. Today’s SJWs and liberal activists would have been happily engaged busting up saloons with an axe handle a hundred years ago. Or even more hilariously, they would have been marching in the big Klan parades of the early part of the twentieth century.

        Liberal Democrats are a much a personality type as they are anything else. The politics may change, but the essential inner strident, know-it-all, hateful, smarmy twit remains the same from generation to generation. You could move some of the non-Jewish liberal commenters on this website back in time to 1930s Germany, and they would fit perfectly well into Nazi politics. Particularly with all the Big Government aspect of the Nazis.

        Which, speaking of strident, know-it-all, hateful, smarmy twits, did you see that a$$-clown on Tucker the other night, who was trying to protect MS-13??? What a maroon!

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

  14. How close to yelling “fire!” In a crowded theatre would you want someone to get before your expansive theory of “free speech” is violated. Suggesting that someone should kill the president of the United States seems awfully close.

  15. That a “women’s studies” curriculum exists outside of a gross anatomy lab is absurd.

    That a course on Beyonce exists within that curriculum is absurd + preposterous.

    That a man (as far as we know) teaches the course is absurd + preposterous + insane.

  16. A class on Beyonce. That says it all.

    Leftists have destroyed all meaning of college. They have made it a farce like everything else they touch. They are a cancer to this country.

    If you think this problem is only a few schools, you are not paying attention. It is 99% of them.

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